In the Twinkling of an Eye
by bookworm1080
Summary: It is the little things that make up who we are, those small moments of transition. LJ 50 sentence challenge


**Disclaimer:** All the characters and the wonderful land of Narnia belong to the amazing C.S. Lewis, but he has given us all permission to play in his sandbox and I am taking full advantage of that.

"_In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed."_

_(1 Corinthians 15:52)_

_

* * *

_**#1. – Unknown**

As she pushes back the last of the heavy coats, her small hand encounters evergreens and snow, and she fearlessly steps out of the ordinary and straight into an adventure.

**#2. – Lies**

Edmund now knows that lies taste like the most delicious of sweets, look like beautiful red-stained lips, and sound like whispered promises of all the things he had always thought he wanted.

**#3. – Eclipse**

When Edmund is delivered to Aslan's camp, it is clear from the first that the true Edmund is back, the one that had for so long been eclipsed by a shadow of his former self.

**#4. – Overwhelmed**

He's in a magical land that his youngest sister found in a wardrobe, where his brother has just been returned from the clutches of a witch, his other sister has received weapons from Father Christmas, and a centaur and a Lion are teaching him battle tactics and strategy for a war he is expected to lead before he and his siblings are crowned as kings and queens—with him as the High King…is it any wonder that Peter is feeling a little overwhelmed?

**#5. – View**

Opening the door and catching only a glimpse of furniture and rugs, they become silently entranced by the glistening Eastern Sea spread wide beyond the airy balcony through open glass doors until, recovering first, Lucy turns to the rest and simply declares, "Mine."

**#6. – Highway**

"You really plan on building a system of _roads_ in Narni—are you _crazy_, Edmund?"

**#7. – Candle**

The candle flickers, drawing his attention briefly before his tired eyes are redirected back to what really matters: the rise and fall of his brother's chest, the flutter of his eyelashes, all the subtle indications that he is, in fact, _alive_.

**#8. – Talent**

"We all have our talents, Peter, it's just that yours seems to involve being maimed and producing copious amounts of blood that should surely kill anyone else."

**#9. – Fever**

Lucy speaks of Aslan with a zeal matched by none other, with fever-bright eyes, a flushed face, and the whole of her being absolutely thrumming with reverent awe and love.

**#10. – Ring**

He slips off the seal and crown that mark him High King, heaves a sigh of relief at finally being done for the day and wishes the weight of his responsibility was as easily shrugged off.

**#11. – Hero**

Peter playfully shoves Edmund off of him and laughs as Edmund flutters his eyelashes and looks back at Peter adoringly, positively cooing, "Oh, _High King Peter_, my _hero_!"

**#12. – Run**

Lucy, dressed in Edmund's old breeches and Peter's old tunic, hair streaming like a golden banner behind her, laughs gleefully to the green green fields open before her, leans down and whispers one command in her horse's ear: "_Run._"

**#13. – Wings**

Standing on the highest turret of the Cair, Peter feels like he has wings as he breathes deeply of the cool, crisp air, lets his worries slide away and throws his arms wide, embracing the expansive, soothing blue of his clear northern skies.

**#14. – Music**

Susan flutters across the sunlit Dancing Lawn, arm in arm with the dryads as all sway gleefully to the inherently beautiful music of nature.

**#15. – Journey**

It is in the great Western Wood that Aslan gave him to, that forest which witnessed his first steps into Narnia and his journey from traitor to king, where Edmund finds his center of peace, humility and justice, those key things that make up both King Edmund the Just and just Edmund.

**#16. – Farewells**

They slowly come to realize that Aslan never says good bye, and that makes them feel contented for it means He will always come back.

**#17. – Hurricane**

The castle is in a frenzy to prepare for the coming of the ambassadors from Galma, rushing to and fro to clean, cook and otherwise make the Cair presentable to foreigners; and amidst it all Susan stands unruffled and regal, directing the chaos with a calm belying the swirl of the storm around her.

**#18. – Silk**

A bundle of silk and ruffles barrels into Peter and Edmund's chess game and under the couch, Lucy's desperate face visible just long enough for her to appeal for sanctuary before disappearing again at the sound of Susan's calls.

**#19. – Formal**

The pained look on Edmund's face sends Peter into peals of laughter, even more so when he catches sight of the formal clothes their valets have forced him into.

**#20. – Lock**

The lock clangs shut heavily, leaving Peter alone with his thoughts and the dread of wondering for how long Edmund will berate him about this adventure once his younger brother has actually managed to save him from it.

**#21. – Fall**

"I told you not to climb that tree because of course it can hold Lucy's weight, she weighs far less than you do, and _no_ it doesn't matter that—_stop_ laughing at me—_ow_, _Peter_, Edmund, _put me down!_"

**#22. – Cold**

Peter sneezes and everyone else _flees_—no one wants to deal with the High King when he is ill.

**#23. – Red**

The red and gold banner precedes the group of tired and bedraggled, but nevertheless victorious, soldiers led by a dirty, bloody, disheveled figure that has never seemed more magnificent.

**#24. – Ice**

"Ahhh, _Lu_, your feet are like ice—get away—ahhh, no—stop touching me!"

**#25. – Drink**

Edmund holds his goblet up to Lucy, eyes twinkling and mouth forming an appreciative smirk as he nods and says, "I'll drink to that."

**#26. – Laugh**

They all laugh at that, Peter warmly and loudly, his head thrown back in amusement, Susan so ladylike, her laugh bubbling up to be trapped in the hand she holds in front of her mouth, Edmund almost like he's embarrassed, with his head ducked down and quiet chuckles escaping after that one loud bark of laughter, and Lucy as she also flutters about, giggling uncontrollably, tugging, moving and pulling anyone within hearing distance in as well, her laughter flowing, it seems, out of every inch of her.

**#27. – Hope**

No matter the despair gripping the heart of any Narnian, they only have to spend a moment in the presence of Queen Lucy and their burden is lightened immeasurably—she is the Hope and Light of Narnia, Aslan's gift to them all.

**#28. – Forgotten**

Their lives are split into Spare Oom and Narnia, and the longer they stay in one place, the less they remember the other that had for so long been all that they knew.

**#29. – Memory**

They come across Lantern Waste and something tingles at the back of all their minds, some feeling of importance and life-changing significance—it feels momentous and familiar and only Edmund can give voice to the feeling, claiming to have seen it before "as it were in a dream, or in the dream of a dream."

**#30. – Silence**

The hall of the four thrones stands silent now as the people mourn the disappearance of the Kings and Queens of Narnia's Golden Age.

**#31. – Dream**

When they stumble back into Spare Oom, it is like falling out of a dream, and they realize: the Lantern Waste wasn't the dream, Narnia and their discovery of it was…and leaving is like waking up in the very worst way.

**#32. – Body**

Having the mind of a grown, diplomatic king trapped in the body of a ten-years-old trouble maker is quite possibly the most frustrating thing Edmund has ever experienced in both his lives.

**#33. – Wait**

It has been a month since they fell out of the wardrobe, out of their kingdom, and Peter is keenly feeling just how hard it is to wait for Aslan—made all the more painful by the knowledge that they do not even know what they are waiting _for_.

**#34. – Gravity**

It hurts to be in a place so much less than the one they came from, a place where nothing is ever quite as bright or beautiful or perfect, a place where the stars do not sing and dance their way across the midnight sky, where even the shift of the planet reminds them that this is not _Narnia._

**#35. – Fire**

Trumpkin's words of obvious doubt in their abilities sends the fire that he has always had a problem controlling when his siblings are insulted coursing through his veins, and now that he is still only one-half King Edmund the Just, Edmund Pevensie the schoolboy snaps back with the sharp wit that quite often gets him into trouble.

**#36. – Dance**

The trees sway in the breeze, and Lucy closes her eyes and sways along with them, imagining she is joining in their dance and that they once again are awake and remember her, their long lost Queen Lucy the Valiant.

**#37. – Midnight**

It's just past midnight that Edmund catches his first true glimpse of Aslan since they left Narnia a year before, and with that glance he truly feels that he is home once again.

**#38. – Strength**

It is only when they have been told that they cannot go back and are forever more trapped in a mundane world, cut off from their kingdom, that they find what strength they truly possess.

**#49. – Mask**

The makeup, the parties, the suitors: it is all a mask to hide the hurt and longing for a land that will never again be hers, that place of magic and majesty and hope—but she wears the mask a little too well and soon she forgets what is underneath.

**#40. – Talk**

Lucy cuddles up to the small grey kitten, tears silently leaking down her face as she softly says, "Oh, Puss, what I would give to have you able to speak to me."

**#41. – Cover**

"Cover me," Lucy whispers to Edmund as she stealthily sneaks forward on silent feet, preparing to tackle their unsuspecting eldest brother as he stands in front of a perfectly positioned mud puddle.

**#42. – Search**

Peter searches her face for a hint of something that is no longer there, and the breaking of his heart is visible in his eyes—Susan, strong, gentle, motherly Susan, the one who always sought to share his burden of caring for the younger ones, the one who for so long was his closest sibling, Susan has _forgotten_.

**#43. – Temptation**

Both Peter and Edmund know they have never faced a stronger temptation than that posed by four small rings with the ability to take them back to a world they are forbidden from but that they love with all their beings.

**#44. – Sacred**

Their oath to Aslan as His Kings and Queens is their sacred word, and they will not break it whether they are in His country or not.

**#45. – Box**

Susan, truly alone for the first time in her life, opens the box hidden beneath her bed in the bedroom she once shared with Lucy and not at all calmly lifts out her only remaining connections to her siblings: poems, letters, gifts, all speaking of Narnia—and it is only when she reaches the bottom and encounters the loving, fierce gaze of a Lion that she finally breaks down and cries.

**#46. – Promise**

They are there at the end, watching as their home, their land, their _Narnia_ is destroyed before their streaming eyes and the stars rain down from the heavens; and thus they are there at the beginning, when Aslan fulfills all His promises and more.

**#47. – World**

Susan can remember exactly three times her world was destroyed: with the innocent click of a wardrobe door, the appearance of a doorway in the air, and with the thousand pounds of steel and heat of a train crash.

**#48. – Forever**

The knowledge that they are with their friends and siblings in the land they love, with _Aslan_, forever fills them so much that their joy overflows and seems to become one with their surroundings, stretching on into eternity and beyond.

**#49. – Whisper**

There is a whisper of wind that dries her tears and carries on it the faint echoes of a roar, and then Susan _remembers._

**#50. – Wait**

Their faces light up with joy as the one they have been waiting for all these years finally crests the hill and Queen Susan the Gentle returns to them.

**#51. – Breathe**

And so, as she steps into a promised land she had once forgotten, her breath is stolen in a gasping, happy sob and what was taken harshly and suddenly by a train all those years ago in exchange for her kingdom is returned with three _magnificent_ shouts of joy.


End file.
